Ballweg president, a grandmother, keeps full schedule

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with new dealership planned for Middleton

About Darlene: Born in Lodi, grew up on a dairy farm outside Lodi. Went to Lodi High School. Attended Columbia County Teachers College and taught for four years, first at a one-room country school and then in Arlington and Prairie du Sac.

Quit teaching to take on responsibilities of the farm. Husband Daniel purchased the Chevrolet dealership in Prairie du Sac in 1965.  Darlene took over Ballweg Chevrolet in 1984 after Daniel's death.

She still lives outside Sauk City on one of the family-owned farms. On why she won't move into the city: "I wouldn't want anybody living that close to me."

Q.  How did you manage to run the business under such tough circumstances?

A. I went to seminars (to learn the business). I had a very good bookkeeper at the time and she helped me along. I began to work in the office in that year and do the deposit and pay attention to the accounts receivable. I had offers from a couple dealers who wanted to come in and buy the business. And I thought, well, these people ? my employees ? have been here for so many years and I'm not going to sell them down the drain. Because you know what happens, somebody new comes in and buys it and gets rid of everybody.

(The employees) make it happen. I mean, nobody can have a business and succeed in business without good employees.

Q.  Was it hard continuing to run the business after your husband died?

A. Oh, yeah. I had a little prayer on my mirror in the morning that said, "Lord, help me get through this day." I had good people around me. I had a fellow dealer, Les Mack, who has Les Mack Chevrolet Buick ... and he went along to dealer meetings with me because I was the only woman in the room. Like I say, I put my shoulders back and said, "I'm going to do this." It was also fun. It wasn't just a dreary life. I enjoy people coming in the dealership and talking to them. I love people, so I make them feel at home and appreciate them.

Q.  So you had to learn the business on the fly?

A. Yes. Then my daughter Dana came aboard and she worked in different parts of the dealership. She was probably here 17 or 18 years.

Q.  What's your day like?

A. Five days a week I come in and get the mail. I come into the dealership and open it.

The job I like is making the bank deposit. A couple of times a week, I go to (the Black Earth store). I send out personal notes, thank-you notes to everybody who buys new or used. That's one thing I very much enjoy. I don't know how I'm going to keep up with (the new Middleton store) but it's going to happen because I get a lot of comments back as to "Wow, I've never had that happen before."

I'll also watch the board because we put the (sales staff's) names on a board and I like to personally congratulate them and thank them (on their sales). I follow up on repair orders. I'll do call-backs to some customers, but not all of them.

Q.  What's the purpose of the call-backs?

A. With Chevrolet, there's a program (called) CSI, Customer Satisfaction Index, and that's very important to us. We want that customer to check "completely satisfied." That's our report card.

It's good to nip any problem right then. If something was in to be fixed, let's say with a new vehicle and something's giving them problems, you want to make sure that's correct right then.

(From Ballweg Vice President Jason Brickl: She also does payroll once a week. She personally hands each employee their check. So she has to do two stores once a week. That takes an entire day basically by the time you get it ready and walk it around both stores. And that's very valuable for employee morale.)

Q.  Why do you hand-deliver the checks?

A. My employees are just very valuable to me.

Q.  Do you plan to retire soon?

A. I'm afraid they won't get rid of me around here for a long time. You know, hopefully the health holds. I really enjoy my work life and I am around here a lot.

Q.  What do you do when you're not working?

A. I have dancing and traveling that are very important to me. No. 1 is dancing. I belong to the Triple Creek Cloggers out of Madison. We did the Verona parade and we did Stoughton's Syttende Mai (parade). I'm the coordinator of the club and set up all the parades. I'm really busy during the summertime.

Also, I've been a polka dancer for years, since I was a little girl, 8 years old. So right after the Stoughton parade, we went to the Concord Polka Fest.

I love to travel. I've even been to Africa on a safari (and) to China. Last winter, I did a week in Acapulco in January and, in February, St. Martens. This fall, I'm going to Europe for three weeks. Of course, my family is very important to me.

Q.  What are the company's goals right now with your expansion into Middleton?

A. We decided we needed to relocate (from our Black Earth location). We're needed in the Middleton area. They need a Chevrolet dealership.

(From Jason Brickl: The Black Earth dealership isn't nearly as viable. I think the second reason for expansion is you run into a point with your company where you have so much midlevel talent. You need to constantly find ways to keep moving youth through the company and develop good, solid, midlevel managers so that when you do expand, you're ready to put people in place. We're poised for expansion right now because we have the people that can make it happen.)

Unless they're kept busy and really interested, they're going to leave us. So that is our goal, to make (the Middleton store) very successful.

Q.  Are you going to shift your focus from Sauk City to Middleton?

A. At first, I'll be in Middleton quite a bit but Sauk City is my home and it's also the main store.

Q.  What are some of the challenges you face in the expansion?

A. It's an expensive venture, so we really need to make it happen and put our nose to the grindstone.

(We need to) let the customer know that Ballweg is a good place to buy with advertising.

Q.  What have your biggest triumphs been?

A. The longevity of my employees would be one of the largest triumphs. They stick around.

Q.  What have been some of your mistakes?

A. Lots and lots of mistakes, I'm sure. Do I want to go there? I don't know. When my husband was here, we sold off land around us. That made us shorter on land around here. At the time, how many years ago, you didn't think you were ever going to need that much land. I think that was a very large mistake. The dealership in Middleton will have plenty of land.

Q.  What do you like about doing business in this area?

A. We're not really that far away from Madison and now with (the Highway 12 expansion) it will get people to us a lot faster. We're real accessible to Madison where it doesn't take long to get there. It's also just a very friendly area. It's a nice place to be.

You have people from all walks of life and they're down-to-earth people.